Shavethewhales

This is kind of what I've been thinking. I want to see it be redone in a big way eventually because I think there aren't a whole lot of options for keeping it as-is indefinitely, and I'd rather see it live on as something new and grand than just rot away. I really do want it to be done well though, it's not just some old dark ride that can be replaced with some new tricks. They still know how to tell a good story with attractions at SDC though, so I think they can do it. This ride really is a special piece of the city. It's a classic, well-thought out ride with a lot of character, history, and timeless appeal. The story is unique, intriguing, and very Ozarkan. Less and less people realize this, but the ride is actually telling the backstory of the entire park. Legend states that the Baldknobbers burned the old mining town of Marmaros down to the ground. Silver Dollar City was supposed to be a recreation of what that town could have looked like. Almost everyone that's from the area has grown up visiting SDC and riding this thing. It's been a big part of making SDC and HFEC what it is today. I wish they'd go back to making custom rides like this again. Well of course! That's what you get when the park has been doing it all for so long and so well that most of its fanboys have grown up and are grey haired and crotchety.

We need to see more details here to see what they're really talking about. If they have a revitalization plan for the whole area that includes some rides, then great. If they're just plopping some rides down and hoping to throw together a make-shift "amusement park" in the middle of a struggling shopping mall, then they'll have some problems. I love the idea of urban ride-based attractions, but they really have to be tailed to be just right for the area and clientele. I hope this doesn't turn out to be another failure story that discourages further entrepreneurs in other cities down the road.

Thoughts? My thoughts are that Screamscape is once again two+ weeks late to the story and there's nothing new here. Lance hasn't been very serious about keeping up with the latest news for years now. If I had to guess at when a sale would occur, I'd assume it will come at or towards the end of next season.

It's hard to stay excited about something when there's no updates. There are too many other projects with webcams and continuous updates that are fun to watch. I'm super excited to see how this will turn out, but in the mean time, unless someone can get some photos, what is there to discuss?

Premier has done a great job managing Frontier City, and I don't hear any bad things about Elitch Gardens either. It's a good company that really understands the fundamentals of the amusement park game. They will surely bid on some of the CNL properties, and I think they will at least end up with Elitch and maybe Wild Waves as well, but if HFEC bids on DL they won't be able to outbid them on that one property. As we've discussed earlier, CNL definitely seems to control the capital investments of each park they own, but they follow the guidance and planning of the company hired to manage the parks. HFEC got to oversee two area make-overs at DL that are similar to what HFEC does in its own parks, and Premier oversaw the addition of a family waterpark addition to FC that they had experience with from their other properties. Anyhow, doesn't sound like anything is changing from what we've already discussed. Premier looks like it will manage the park into 2015, then who knows what will happen. I just wonder when they'll put out the call for bids.

Coaster Christmas was a lot of fun. It was great getting to meet some of you in person. In regards to the tower, there were some questions asked about any modifications to it and the construction guys said it's all pretty much standard. S&S makes a variety of towers, and this is one of the classic double shots, which are shorter than the combo towers that most of the bigger parks went for. As we already knew, the area is very impressive and well thought-out. They are satiating a lot of people with this project from young families to SDC purists. The lake is going to look a lot better as well. I posted some photos of the FL progress on SDCFans, and will post some here + event photos when I get home from work tonight.I hope some of the other event attendees will post their photos too. I know there are some on the ACE Heart of America FB page.

Nice. I guess it's much easier to install track the closer to the ground it gets. That means construction will get exponentially faster, right? And if you think this doesn't look thrilling enough, just think about where the riders will actually go around this thing.

Sounds like someone else I know But seriously, this thing, combined with the rest of the line of products that will follow it will at least make the dreaded carny areas of parks a little more interesting and worthwhile. I'm not super excited about it, but at least this turns games into something that's truly family oriented and not just a bunch of half-hearted scams. I really despise games in parks... it's not necessarily the games themselves, it's how they're always handled. This will help class them back up I think. I'd love to see some theming packages as well. Doesn't hurt to make em look good.

I remember it going all the way around when it was at CC. It has some fairly good G forces on it. It's one of those rides that smaller people can ride, but at the same time is really appealing to everyone including thrill seekers.

Interesting, so they're finally moving the old flying carpet from Celebration City. I know at one point there was a stipulation that this ride had to remain on the property stemming from the sale of the Branson USA park. The original owner bought it for his daughter or something like that, there was some sort of sentimental thing behind it. This was a fun ride. I was hoping it would end up at SDC somehow, but it's a good fit for WA.

Not Texan, but I'm not too antsy yet. I watch a ton of development projects, and the bigger they are the more back-and-forth there is. From everything I've heard, things are still chugging along, albeit slowly. I want the water park to get off the ground, but even if it gets delayed another year it's not the end of the world.

^What don't you understand? I'm talking about this: http://rcdb.com/3510.htm IIRC, Bowcraft nearly closed down completely a few years ago, and Crossbow was listed for sale for a long time. It's not a huge ride, but it is a good size, custom layout, park-model coaster in good condition. I thought I had heard that Bowcraft was still wanting to sell it to give them some more working capital, but I guess it's been a while since I heard anything about it and they seem to be chugging along OK now. It was simply the first thing that jumped into my mind when I started thinking about a big expansion for a tiny park like Santa's Village. Then again, maybe they're not talking about a new ride at all. Sounds like there are a lot of things in motion for this place.

^Ah, I didn't read the original post very carefully. I was thinking maybe it was only one section or something, but that makes much more sense, lol Just to throw some speculation out there, isn't there a very nice, like-new Zierer family coaster up for sale still from Bowcraft? Looks like the park was saved, but they still want to sell the coaster?

That's exciting! With a couple of good credits this will be a definite stop on the way to SFGAm. Doesn't look like a huge foundation, but if it's bigger than Typhoon that's got to count for something. Is it another Schwartzkopf?

This park will never die. If it ever does somehow close, I'm going to get really depressed. It's been fun watching it constantly escape the seemingly inevitable. Plus, how many truly classic small parks are there left? Like 4 or 5? It's been tough losing Bell's, Joyland, Miracle Strip, LeSourdsville lake, and several others in just the last decade.

Exactly. I've been following this thread for awhile now, but I seem to have missed the discussion about why the webcam has always had that overlay. Can someone summarize it for me? I assume they're hiding a special surprise, but if that is the case, why not do something sensible like pointing the camera somewhere else instead of having half a webcam. As far as this ride goes, I know there's been loads of discussion about how short these things are, but IMO I still get excited about dive machines. I loved Oblivion, as short as that ride is. The way your body falls on these things is just somehow different... it's much more intense than on a drop tower or other types of coasters. Something about the trains I guess. I think a drop+inversion+helix is enough to a complete package.

I'm excited to hear that the renovations worked out. I was a little worried that it would still need a lot of work since it didn't look like they replaced a lot of wood. Hearing this news is enough to get me to start planning a deep south trip for 2016.

This is such a cool project. I'm so glad to see them breaking ground and getting this thing going. I participate in a lot of development forums and urban planning groups, and once this is finished it will be a cool thing to pass around to open people's minds to modern attraction development. Right now you start talking about rides in urban settings and people start thinking Six Flags and freaking out about it. I've been saying for awhile now that smaller concept, well-put together attractions like these could really spice up a lot of smaller metro's. Tulsa needs something along this line...

I believe Lake Monster was a serious concept, but it won't happen unless HFEC gets the park. HFEC doesn't just throw out ideas willy-nilly. Every concept survey I've seen has led to a specific attraction. Usually when they present one attraction like that they have already made their decision and just want to gauge general feedback so they know how to market it better. Heck, anyone who ends up with the park is probably going to RMC Predator. It just seems like an obvious thing to do at this point, if it's anything like the other Dinn coasters. It looks like it has a really good profile and was probably amazing when it opened, but they just didn't build them to last. How did it ride this past season? I had heard that it was OK for awhile after they switched the trains.

Great photos. What a legendary park spree! Love the reaction to FITH. That thing is under-appreciated by enthusiasts, IMO. I was surprised by your reaction to Wildfire. I've heard a variety of opinions, but you rarely hear anything negative about it from another enthusiast, especially in comparison to some of B&M's other creations. I think I understand where you are coming from though. For some reason B&M's can come off really 'meh' depending on what else you've been riding lately that you can compare it to. On a good day though a back seat ride on Wildfire can be pretty incredible with lots of air on the drop and some pretty good G's - especially on the last turn.

Oh I agree completely on the financial aspect, I'm still just betting that HFEC will go for it and probably win. But maybe we should just keep the sale discussion to the other thread, we're already getting into a split discussion here. Anyone been watching attendance levels lately? How has their Halloween event been working out? It sounded like DL's was a little subdued from what I read earlier. Meanwhile every other park I've seen is milking Halloween for all it's worth.

I agree with this, but I still think HFEC is interested, and I think when push comes to shove next year when CNL really needs to get rid of this property HFEC will still be holding the best offer. HFEC doesn't necessarily need to bring this park up to SDC/DW quality. They haven't done that with Wild Adventures, and they have a huge array of properties that are all run differently. They have been wanting to expand to more parks for a long time now though, and this property falls right in line with their strategy. A few coats of paint and a couple new trains with better operations and this place would turn around in a heart beat. I mean it comes down to this: CNL has to sell the park before the end of 2015, and there are only a few people to sell to who are willing to take this diamond in the rough and invest in it for the long term. I don't doubt they tried to squeeze HFEC for a crazy price to turn over the park early, but they'll soon be forced to bring their price down to the market reality. I don't see Premier or Six Flags being willing to purchase the park, so that leaves Parques Reunidos, Cedar Fair, and maybe a couple other random smaller operators. Now I don't doubt there are other bids that are going to be made, but I'd still bet on HFEC to pursue this to the end. All just speculation from me though.

I don't pretend to know what direction HFEC wants to go, but IMO they've put too much effort into DL just to drop it. Premier isn't going to buy all of CNL's parks, and I don't know who else will. If I had to hazard a guess right now I'd say they're still doing a dance. If HFEC really is leaving the contract then it's probably just so that they'll be in a better position to make deals. I mean, back in 2009 wasn't HFEC trying to buy multiple Six Flags properties? The only reason they didn't buy Elitch, Frontier City, and Darien Lake outright back then was because SF wanted to sell them as a package deal with a bunch of other stuff, if I recall correctly. Then again, this is a chain that sunk tens of millions of dollars into a big piece of Branson property and then just gave up on it completely after 5 years because it was performing just under expectations. They also gave up on their waterpark at Stone Mountain after purchasing all the equipment for it...

To further answer the question on the last page about Premier, a few years ago the old CEO and COO of the original Premier chain went and started their own chain under the same name. They operate Frontier City and Elitch Gardens under CNL, and own Clementon and a water park in Nashville. More about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Parks,_LLC I'm not sure how much capital Premier has. Anyone think they could buy Frontier City and Elitch? If they had to choose, which one would they go after? Elitch doesn't seem to have a whole lot of easy growth potential like Frontier City has, but it's in an awesome location in a bigger city. I also wonder about Magic Springs... it wasn't long ago that they were rumored to be looking at getting rid of the amusement park portion since they weren't doing well. I don't see a lot of people rushing to buy them out, but who currently operates it? Whoever the current operator is, they seem to be doing a good job and the place looks like it's doing better.

Great photos ytterbiumanalyst. Rainy, overcast days always are the best times to visit the park, but of course the risk of lightning can make things iffy. It's worth it for the spurts of empty lines though. Just this past weekend the park had nice weather and the place was slammed apparently. I'm surprised they don't build and advertise more indoor offerings. There's still plenty to do even if the big outdoor rides are shut down. I wasn't sure how the race thing was actually going to work, but it sounds like a decent excuse to get some ERT. Maybe I'll try it next year. Someone else also sent in some photos of the construction from this past weekend. I don't have explicit permission to repost them anywhere else, but they are available here here: http://sdcfans.com/firemans-landing-construction-update/